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Last modified: 16-06-2020 |
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Interactive Voice Response
To use CallerID in a SOHO environment, you don't actually need to get one of those expensive telephony cards. Most modems today handle callerID, which is actually a few lines of text sent during the RING sequence by your telco.
CallerID is usually enabled by first reinitializing the modem with "atz" followed by "at#cid=1", but you'll have to run your favorite terminal application to double-check (How to Test a MODEM for Caller ID Support; Short story: Open HyperTerminal on the COM port used by the modem, eg. COM3, activate the CallerID mode using eg. "atz", and "at#cid=1" or whatever command your modem uses to activate CallerID mode, and call the modem from another phone: If your telco activated CallerID for this line, you should see the relevant information displayed between RINGs).
Important: Some modems based on Conexant chipsets (eg. HSFi CX11252-11) claim to support caller ID (at+vcid=1 says OK), but don't actually support this feature, and hence, do no report anything between the first two RINGs.
The modem doesn't actually pick up the call; It just returns the callerID info to the application that opened the port and is listening on it. I tried a bunch of them, and I can recommend Identify! which is small and does the job (besides, there's the free add-on NetCID which lets you display Caller ID on other hosts on your LAN.) In the same price range, a user recommended Identafone.
If the application doesn't pick up callerID, the INF file(s) provided by your modem manufacturer might be missing or have wrong callerID information. Use the logging feature in the Modem section of Windows' Control Panel to see if this is the cause. More infos on how to correct faulty INFs here.
If this case, open the INF file that contains the information that the modem will write into the Registry (if the modem is installed through an EXE, go into $WINDIR\INF\, and check all the OEMx.INF files for the one that was installed by the modem installer), and check that it contains answer strings that match the stuff returned by your telco. Here are standard strings that the INF must provide so that TAPI can work with CallerID:
INF files often miss the <cr><lf> in front of each message, making the modem unable to interpret those CallerID messages. If the modem is already installed, search the Registry for the Responses section of your modem, and add/correct the missing/incorrect lines above; You might need to reboot for changes to be taken into account (disabling/enabling the Modem might not be enough.) To investigate, you can check the modem log file through its icon in Control Panel.
Here's what the CID info looks like (might be country-dependent, though):
FYI, the caller's name is limited to something like twenty characters. Some callerID applets let you build a database, so you can customize the caller's name and rename it differently.
As an alternative to telephony cards and modems, you can buy a stand-alone box like the Whozz Calling 2 two-line call tracker ($249) or the Panasonic TA-308 with CID and a display phone ($500.) Voilà :-)
Long story made short: If you need to monitor more than one modem on a single host, and send notifications to hosts on the same LAN as well as hosts located on other networks (be they internal, or accross the Net), the only apps that do this are ThePhoneBot (apparently no longer under development as of 2005) and Ascendis Caller ID.
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Application |
Supports major European languages |
Supports multiple modems in same host |
Supports broadcast/remote notification |
Notes |
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Yes |
Yes/Yes |
Seems to be deadware since 2005; $40; Install a Windows service that listens on TCP 8188, and the PhoneBot app itself listens on TCP 33949; With the free version...
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Yes, but caller id doesn't always work with two winmodems |
Yes/Yes |
"Ascendis Caller ID will work in this configuration if you can open the correct
port(s) on the router on the server side. Ascendis Caller ID uses one or two
ports for network communication (by default, 62965 and/or 62966) depending on
the type of network connection. Please note that Ascendis Caller ID is licensed per phone line monitored, so to monitor two phone lines you must purchase two copies" $35 |
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Yes (run multiple instances) |
Yes/Yes (through Yac) |
Found the interface too complicated; to get CID at remote locations use Yac method (go to the Ring tab in the main setup. At the bottom check the option "Notify users via Yac". Click the setup button, check the option to communicate directly with Yac, and enter the IP address of each PC you want to send CID to.) Pro version (required for LAN notification) $50 |
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"Works with up to 4 telephone lines" |
?/? |
Doesn't seem to support LAN/WAN notifications |
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Yes ("support for two telephone lines") |
?/? |
Looks old. 16-bit app? |
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No |
Yes (NetBIOS)/No |
by default at least, interprets numbers the US way (eg. 06.74.54.x is shown as (067) 454-x Seems to use Windows' Messenger service to notify hosts on LAN ("Free network add-on NetPop that pops on networked computers whenever IdentaFone broadcasts a received call. Must have "Client For Microsoft Networks" installed as a network protocol.") |
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No |
Yes/? |
Yet Another Caller ID Program; One of the YAC listeners is MCE-YAC (for Windows Media Center) 32-bit version last updated 2002; 64-bit updated 2005 |
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Yes/No |
Doesn't seem to support LAN/WAN notifications |
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Yes/No |
Last updated May 2005 |
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No |
Yes/No |
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?/? |
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No |
Yes/No |
Great app. Too bad it only handles one modem |
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Yes |
No/No |
Latest news dated Sept 2003 |
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Apps to generate CID for testing or spoofing purposes |
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Yes |
No/No |
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?/? |
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No |
No/No |
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Yes |
No/No |
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?/? |
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No |
No/No |
What's in a name? |
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?/? |
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?/? |
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?/? |
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Yes/? |
Server is Linux-based; Windows is only available for the client part; Clients are in TclTk |
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?/? |
Latest news dated 23 May 2001 |
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Yes/? |
Compatible with CallerID Sentry; "Caller ID application developed specifically for the 3Com Audrey internet appliance" |
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?/? |
seems to support multiple modems; numbers formated US style |
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Should be added soon |
No/No |
Only supports e-mail notification |
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Yes, but only works with Whozz Calling hardware |
Yes/No |
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?/? |
To build applications |
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?/? |
To develop telephony apps |
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As of June 2004, this is the only application that I could get to work with the CallerID info returned by France Telecom.
Through Configure > E-mail, Identify 4.2.0 will only send an e-mail to a single recipient. If you want more than one e-mail address to receive a message when a call comes in, and instead of setting up an SMTP server just for this purpose, an alternative is to use the General > Call alert... option, where you can have Identify run a program when someone calls in: